FREENOW is a mobility service provider headquartered in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, Germany. FREENOW was formed in February 2019 from a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

between

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

and Daimler Mobility. Thomas Zimmermann is CEO of the FREENOW Group. The FREENOW Group is the

vehicle for hire A vehicle for hire is a vehicle providing private transport or shared transport for a fee, in which passengers are generally free to choose their points or approximate points of origin and destination, unlike public transport, and which t ...

vertical of this joint venture; other services within the vertical include Beat and formerly Clever, Hive and Kapten, which rebranded to FREENOW. FREENOW is one of the largest

companies in Europe. As Mobility-as-a-Service platform FREENOW aggregates numerous mobility brands and vehicle options to make them bookable within one app. Next to taxi and PHV, FREENOW offer car sharing and further micro-mobility options such as eScooters, eMopeds, and eBikes with its partners TIER, VOI, EMMY, Cooltra, Miles, SHARE NOW, DOTT, felyx and SIXT. FREENOW serves over 150 European cities including

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. FREENOW customer care and support teams operate from Dublin,

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, and

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

among other European cities.

History

mytaxi was founded in 2009 by German entrepreneurs Niclaus Mewes and Sven Külper. Later that year, the pair founded the legal entity behind mytaxi, Intelligent Apps. In September 2014, Daimler acquired mytaxi's parent company, Intelligent Apps, entering the

market.

In 2016, the German e-hailing app mytaxi merged with Hailo. Founded in London in 2011, Hailo was a British technology platform that matched taxi drivers and passengers through its mobile phone application. The merger between mytaxi and Hailo made mytaxi the largest licensed taxi e-hailing operator. Following regulatory approval in February 2019, Daimler and BMW announced the €1bn mobility joint-venture; the parent company is known as YOUR NOW which also operates SHARE NOW, ReachNow, Park Now and CHARGE NOW. On 1 July 2019, myTaxi was rebranded to FREENOW and has transformed from a taxi app into a fully integrated multi-mobility platform. In January 2021, FREENOW announced a €6 million investment to fund its 14,000 drivers in Ireland with home charging kits to encourage them to switch to electric vehicles. Overall, FREENOW wants to allocate more than EUR 100 million of resources in the coming five years to push the electrification of its rides across Europe. On 16 April, 2025, it was announced that the company was bought by

Lyft Lyft, Inc. is an American company offering ride-hailing services, motorized scooters, and bicycle-sharing systems in the United States and Canada. Lyft sets fares, which vary using a dynamic pricing model based on local supply and demand a ...

for €175mn. The purchase marks its first expansion into Europe.

References

External links

* * {{Sharing economy Lyft Companies based in Hamburg German companies established in 2009 German brands Location-based software Taxis Ridesharing companies of Germany Transport companies established in 2009 Transport Network Companies 2025 mergers and acquisitions